


No Rest for the Wicked

by TwixforBats



Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Gen, I guess it could be pre-slash sorta if you kinda squint?, mentions of Lester Nygaard, mentions of Lorne Malvo, sulfuric acid is mentioned too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 09:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1852360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwixforBats/pseuds/TwixforBats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why do you do this?"</p><p>It's such an easy question, but no one ever bothers to give a straight answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Rest for the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pseudothyrum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudothyrum/gifts).



> For you, sweety; I can't give you the best, but I can try giving you my best.

Wrench is absolutely convinced that Numbers is a clever and resourceful man who could do anything he sets his mind to, and that's why he sometimes finds it odd that he decided to settle for hitman. They are payed well and can end up with plenty of free time, that's true, but it's hard to believe that he couldn't find a job that pays as well and doesn't have the odd chance of having to scrub somebody's brains off somebody's carpet.  
So, one day, he asks. _Why do you do this?_

It's an easy question, he thinks, which is why Wrench finds it maddening when Numbers replies with a shrug.

 _What_ he asks, glaring at him. Numbers shrugs again: _why does anyone do this?_ he signs, not even bothering to put down his toast.

Wrench lets out an annoyed sigh, feeling his vocal chords tremble as he does so: there is the possibility he has just made some sort of horrible noise there, but he finds himself too irritated to care. Numbers has this bad habit of answering questions with other questions in what is possibly the closest he can come to repeatedly smashing somebody's face against a very dismissive wall without someone around them calling the police, and for the love of god, Wrench just wants to have a conversation there, why must it always end in bad riddles? _I don't know, why?_

Numbers rolls his eyes, finally leaving the toast on the plate. _Because money doesn't grow on trees._

Wrench frowns. _What?_

 _Because I have bills to pay and I have children to feed and this is a job that pays, so I do this_. Numbers raises his hands in something that isn't actually a sign but very clearly means 'is this enough for you', and Wrench thinks of himself as a very sane and restrained man but it takes him all his strength not to jump on the table and strangle his partner.

 _What children_ he asks instead, because Wrench is not only a very sane and restrained man but also a living saint.

Numbers gives him a wry little smile, his face the very picture of false amiability. _I'm looking at one right now._

 

* * *

 

Lorne Malvo dies in a hut, killed by an ex-police officer turned postman: the rest of the article is little more than desperate padding.  
No one knows where he came from. No one knows if Lorne Malvo was his real name. No one knows just how many people he killed. No one knows why.  
All they know is that Lorne Malvo has died in a hut, killed by a former police officer turned postman, and that his leg had been caught up in a bear trap.

The smile on his lips tells him he finds that image amusing.

 

* * *

 

Lester Nygaard dies a few weeks later: he gets a couple of columns in the local newspapers. His main crime is the murder of his first wife, beloved by many, pillar of the community and all those pretty things that dead people tend to be.  
He dies falling through thin ice on a lake.

The odd look he receives from the man behind the counter tells him he's been laughing.

 

* * *

 

He's been hunting the man for a week now.  
He doesn't know what he's done, doesn't know why: he knows that he's been asked to kill him. The man is kneeling in front of him, his shoulders shaking.

His lips move between sobs, 'Why are you doing this?'

Wrench doesn't know why. He didn't ask what the man has done: they had just given him the money.

He pulls the trigger.

 

* * *

 

They never think about it because they don't feel the need to. Their job involves doing terrible things, and it's fine: throwing corpses to the pigs, cutting them into pieces, setting them on fire, that's fine. All of it is fine.  
Well, no, of course, it actually isn't, of course it isn't- but they can deal with it. Once you accept the fact that your job revolves around killing people, you just never really think about... _it_. Not the killing, no: that can be fun. The general idea of having just killed someone. You shut that part of the job off and it just becomes something that happens.

Sometimes it might come back to them: maybe they're brushing their teeth, maybe they cut themselves shaving, when something in the back of their minds stirs and suddenly they know that they're actually killing people.  
It's disorienting, but it ends soon: after all, of course they're actually killing people. That's their job.

That is until they use sulphuric acid for the first time.

They've done many terrible things, but nothing is worse than using acid to get rid of a body. It's vile, and horrifying, and graphic, and disgusting, and the corpse dissolves under their eyes, one layer of skin at a time, flesh frying as it disappears, and there's no one else to blame but them. They're doing that, they're killing people, and they can try to distance themselves from that fact as much as they want but the simple truth is that someone is dissolving in front of them and it's their fault.

Hours later they're at a bar, glasses of beer and tequila and whisky piling up in front of them. They decided they will never use acid again: they mean it.  
They also started talking about leaving the business and finding another job: they don't mean it. Even in that moment, as drunk and as shocked as they are, they know they won't ever leave their job.

'It's just' Numbers half says and half signs, slurring heavily in both cases, 'we want to but we know we can't stop can we? I mean you know I wish I could stop, but I can't. We can't. Can't hold back. We just keep going until we die because that- that's what we've- are. That's what we are.'

Wrench shakes his head, but doesn't bother arguing: his hands are too busy bringing alcohol to his mouth to debate philosophy.


End file.
